


Lola versus the War Machine

by Laura_Sinele



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - Drag Queens, Alternate Universe - Vietnam, Bisexual Male Character, Fist Fights, Gay Male Character, I would let my teenager child read this if I had one, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Sexual Content, Scars, Serious Injuries, Song Lyrics, Songfic, Swearing, Trans Character, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vietnam War, Virginity, War, War descriptions, and to torment Armie, because Ben Solo is a Drag Queen named Lola who sings for a living, coming to terms with own sexual orientation, like everywhere, rated M for language but dunno, war mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-07 18:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13441134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_Sinele/pseuds/Laura_Sinele
Summary: Disclaimer: first person narrator and lots of dialogue.Armie Hux comes from Northern Ireland to London to enlist in the army and start from the lower ranks. He wants to prove his father, Lieutenant Colonel Brendol Hux that he can earn an officer's position the hard way.While in London he stays with Phil Asma, a sergeant under his father's command. One Saturday night, to celebrate the visit of a bunch of colleagues and that Armie is being drafted next Monday, they take the scaredy small-town boy to a club in Soho, where he meets Lola.And Armie is not dumb but he can't undestand why she walked like a woman but talked like a man.Inspired by the song "Lola", by The Kinks.





	Lola versus the War Machine

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is my first proper fic ever. At my thirties. Yeah. So, be gentle, ok? 
> 
> The kickstarter was the song "Lola" by The Kinks, about a young inexperienced guy who meets a transvestite and at first is confused but finally gives in to his own desire. One night driving home listening to it I had a flash of a Ben Solo in drag seducing a shy but eager Armie Hux. I made myself a playlist with Vietnam Era songs and songs that drag queen Lola would perform on her shows and I wrote around them ([here's the link to Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/aurac/playlist/5A8krxaWnQh6Su1j7V70hH)). I also took the idea of the song Whatever Lola Wants from the movie Kinky Boots, from where I stole the line "Ladies and gentlemen and those haven't decided yet" too.
> 
> In this universe Ben is not Kylo Ren. He was but he came back to his family just in time to redeem himself. So yeah, sometimes he is too self centred and disregards others' feelings and needs, but he is more mature and wiser because of his background.
> 
> As per Armie, he is not General Armitage Hux, all haughty and ambitious, because we meet him before he sets foot in the army. He's got a strong sense of duty but he is young, shy and kind of sweet, and Ben/Lola is going to be really invested in not letting him become a ruthless war dog. 
> 
> This said, I would appreciate any comments on my writing as English is not my first language, and also comments in general as I love my babies and I love to talk about them. You can also find me on tumblr as [laurasinele](https://laurasinele.tumblr.com/)

I had never been to London before. I was twenty-three but I felt like seven. It was the summer of 1970 and it was madness. It was as if the end of the world was brewing and everybody was waiting to see who snapped first. Everywhere I went I felt out of place. It was a very different kind of hell from home, at Derry with the IRA. There wasn't a real menace, just the feeling, the sense of it looming over our heads. And somehow it was worse. 

 

I wandered the streets in my plain jeans and tee that screamed out loud small town boy, half scared all the time that I’d bump into the sodding White Duke or the Stones around every corner. I was looking for things to do before I could enroll in the army, and honestly, I don’t know how I didn’t end up mugged or worse with that stupid face of mine asking for it.

 

I rented a room at an acquaintance’s flat while I took some days off after finishing my degree and prepared to enlist. My parents’ advice. A sergeant serving under my father took me in without many questions in exchange of a fair amount per week. He said any son of Lieutenant Colonel Hux was bound to be a decent man. His name was Phil Asma. Pretty scary fellow: really tall, broad shoulders, piercing blue eyes in a beardless face. Never talked much. He looked like he was mad half of the time but I soon learned it was just his expression. We didn’t meddle much in each other’s matters. 

 

After a week or so in London, a Saturday evening, the flat was overrun by four of Phil’s army friends. They were all on leave, overexcited and noisy, and I had never seen Phil that cheerful before. He presented them as section partners and they called themselves the Tusk Raiders. Apparently they had won some sort of eating contest several times in a row, they even had matching commemorative t-shirts, and now they were in my settee trying to win a drinking one they’d just made up. 

 

I had accepted one beer just to be polite and was already preparing to leave to my room when Phil grabbed my wrist and insisted that I must join them and go to a club in North Soho, since I was going to enroll next Monday and my schedule would be uncertain from then on. According to him,  _ we _ had to celebrate. I thought he was a bit drunk and I wasn’t at all comfortable celebrating anything with my up until then broody room mate and four ill-mannered strangers, but I didn’t know how to refuse. 

 

So there I was down in scary Soho. I’d left home just a week before and I still had ‘spud’ written all over my face. My thick accent and my bright red hair didn’t help. London’s flashy decadent nightlife terrified me, but one of Phil’s friends shoved a glass flute of a fizzy drink into my hands and they all happily yelled cheers to me. If it was supposed to be champagne, to me it tasted like Coca Cola, but after the third flute I was floating around the club, dancing with every living soul. Well,  _ dancing _ . At least I was trying. 

 

When I stopped at our booth for another drink, Phil congratulated me on my moves with a conspiratory smile. “See that girl over there? She hasn’t stopped eyeing you for a very long time”. I swallowed my fourth flute of champagne-cola instantly and scanned the crowd for the aforementioned girl. Then I saw her, space-dark eyes pinning me on place.    
  
“That’s not a girl, Phil. She doesn’t look like a girl”. It wasn’t a complaint at all. 

 

“You’re right, mate. She looks like a whole lotta woman”. 

 

She was coming towards our booth, eyes ever on me, and she walked like a greek goddess, all hips and purpose, hovering on blinding red stilettos matching a thick shiny belt and her glossy lipstick. She was tall and broad-shouldered but she moved effortlessly, delicate like a silk drape on the wind. Her black pencil dress was a thing of beauty, crowned by a well tamed, shoulder-long, black mane. I remember being too stunned by her overall looks to realize at first how peculiar her face features were: big mouth and nose, thick brows and a scar along the right side of her face. Her skillfully applied make up and her blasting confidence were helpful too to conceal them. By the time she reached me, I was completely lost in her sight.

 

“Hi, redhead. Do you want to dance?”, she asked nonchalantly, with a hand on her gracefully sided hip, and the other extended to me, inviting. Her american accent struck me.

 

I had enough liquid courage in my veins by then to not refuse such a charming offer, but still, awkward as I was, I made a bit of a fool of myself before answering. I stayed very still, eyes very open, hands clenched on my lap, looking to her eyes, then her bosom, then feeling embarrassed and quickly shifting my gaze to her extended hand, and then again to her eyes. She looked amused. Thank God. 

 

“Hi. Hi,” I repeated louder, waving a hand timidly, “my name’s Armie. What’s yours?”

 

She smirked and leaned in very closely, putting her extended hand on the wall beside my head for balance. Then she whispered in my ear, almost growled, in a dark, low voice: “Lola”.

 

She sent shivers down my spine, followed by her playful fingers down my arm. In a single movement, she took my hand, turned her back and lead me to the dance floor. They were playing slow music now and I had no idea what to do with my hands. She laughed briefly at my shyness and placed them on her waist, where her shiny red belt met the beginning of her hips. Then she placed her own arms around my neck and we started swaying to the music as she shamelessly entwined her fingers with my hair. I had never danced with a woman before. 

 

She was taller than me, I suspected that even without those high heels. And she was really strong. Every now and then she would squeeze me tighter and I might not be the world’s most physical man but she had pretty impressive arms for a woman. Still, she was fascinating. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at her. The way she moved was mesmerizing, her gaze, her deep brown eyes, almost black, hypnotic. I’ve never been a passionate guy. I’ve never really cared about feelings and, you know,  _ courtship _ . But there I was after three or four dances with Lola, feeling less drunk in cheap champagne and more intoxicated by the swept of her eyelashes. When the music stopped we stood there for a moment. The lights went on and the DJ said that was the last call. People started to gather their things and leave chattering loudly. I looked in her eyes and I swear that I almost fell for her. I had never kissed a woman before. I was going to start instruction soon. It felt like the right place and the right time and Lola was looking at me through those feathery eyelashes, smiling lightly, pleased with the knowledge of all the little secrets she had managed to take from me in exchange for her own. If I’d say “My favourite colour is mint green”, she’d answer “I love words with lots of Us in them”; when I said “My dad is a big fish in the army so…”, she replied “My folks are pacifists, they’d freak out if they’d see me dancing with a soldier”. 

 

I smiled back at her and our foreheads touched. And then, right when I could feel her breath on my skin and our lips were about to touch, I was revealed as the huge oblivious prick that I am. 

 

“Wow, mate! What a conquest! Phil here was gonna let you go home with the prize but we know better. We wouldn’t do that to a fellow soldier, would we, lads?” One of Phil’s friends whose name I can’t bother to remember was standing too close to Lola speaking way too loud. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I blurted. Lola rolled her eyes. 

 

“He says you were gonna go home with an extra prize”, said another Tusk Raider smugly, moving his hips back and forth with his hands in his pockets.

 

Phil grabbed my arm protectively. “Let it go, Armie. It’s late, let’s go home”. “No, go ahead” I snapped back, “I want to spend some more time with Lola”.

 

The four prats all laughed and someone said “He has no clue, does he?”. Lola looked mortified and so did Phil. He kept tugging at my arm. Eventually Lola caressed my cheek and pulled the saddest smile. “Better listen to your friends, private. I am bad news”. 

 

She turned around and started to leave with her beyond perfect, sinuous walk, when one of the bastards made her trip off and fall on her face. 

 

“¡Hey!” I yelled, and tried to get rid of Phil and help her, but after a moment of silence she started to laugh, a distinct, defiant sound, as she slowly rose up, taking off her shoes on the way and standing barefoot. Definitely she was taller than me    
  
Her voice was deep and husky now, and her poise and movements were completely different. Around us the few people remaining at the club stopped in their way out and gathered for the show.   
  
“Is this how her Majesty’s men treat the ladies nowadays?”, she asked with a sassy smirk, cleaning some blood from her bottom lip with the back of her hand.   
  
“You ain’t no lady”, said one of them, and he spit on her dress.

 

She blinked slowly, took a deep breath, tilted her head and said: “First to order, first to get served”. And she got him senseless from one single punch in the face. A couple of voices in the crowd cheered and somebody said “Well done, Lola!”. I thought she must have been a celebrity. How couldn’t she?

 

The other three wankers looked at each other, considering their odds. I was in shock. Phil was ecstatic. I swear he chuckled. 

 

“C’mon!” challenged Lola almost manly, and idiot me was about to discover how that was even possible. “Who’s next?”.

 

She was striking a perfect boxing pose and she looked both beautiful and terrifying. Two of the other three went for her at the same time but she ducked, grabbed their shirts and crashed their heads together. They fell unconscious on the ground. Now I was positive Phil had  _ laughed _ . 

 

“Stay away from me, pervert!” said the last Tusk Raider as he ran for the door and then, only then it dawned on me. Good thing I wasn’t going for Intelligence Service. 

 

The small audience cheered Lola before scattering off and she had a crooked smile on her face as she did a little reverence. With the lights on, seeing her with all the makeup smudged, after witnessing the fight I couldn’t believe I had ever thought otherwise. Lola was a man. 

 

Our eyes met and her smile disappeared. Still, she managed to draw it again before talking, painfully by the looks of it: “Still wanna spend some more time with me?” she used a soft voice again. He. He did. I didn’t answer. I could feel my heart in my throat and my ears. She walked to me. He, damn it, he walked to me and tried to put a hand on my shoulder. I pushed her, HIM, I pushed him away and walked to the door without uttering a word. He. He didn’t follow me. 

 

Once out in the street, in the cold night air, I felt weak on my knees and I had to lean on a lightpost for support. Phil got me there. He took me by the shoulder and got me into a cab and back home in silence. Looking back, I think that’s the moment when we became friends.    

 

* * *

 

The sound of the curtains being drawn woke me up on Sunday morning and it felt like a thing of violence. A dry, disgusting taste in the back of my mouth reminded me that I had been puking the night before and I reached brainlessly for the glass of water I usually kept on the night table. When I reacquainted myself with the awaken state and mornings in general, I found Phil before me in a tank top, pyjama bottoms and a short robe, holding two cups of tea. He gave me one of them and said there was breakfast in the kitchen while turning his back and leaving the room. I had never seen Phill set foot in the kitchen if not for a beer or a cup of tea, but I could smell bacon and beans so it had to be true. I got up and followed him. 

 

“Sit”, he said from behind a plate garnished with a full English breakfast, motioning a hand towards a similar one at the other end of the kitchen table. 

 

I obediently sat before my plate, muttered an awkward ‘thank you’ and started to eat. Phil cleared his throat. 

 

“So, last night”, he started. He seemed to be trying to speak in a deeper voice than usual for some reason, not that his voice had ever been deep at all by the way, and he looked kind of uncomfortable, like a parent about to give the birds and bees talk. He must have been no more than five years older than me and I didn’t think he had the right to lecture me on women. Then again, maybe I needed a lecture on women after last night but that didn’t mean I was eager about it.

 

“Whut ubut ut”, I replied with a mouthful and the best clueless expression I could pull out. 

 

“How do you feel?”

 

I swallowed. “Hungover?”.

 

We laughed for a moment, very manly. 

 

“I mean… you know… about, about…”, he cleared his throat again, loudly, “about Lola”. He wasn’t trying to sound deep now. Then it didn’t occurred to me that it was something odd to ask for someone I’d known for not much more than a week, because I was actually feeling lots of things that I needed to pull off of my chest and I didn’t know how. I was torn between feeling private and thinking it was actually nice of Phil to be asking. 

 

“I… don’t know…”. Phil gave me a look. He gave me a look with his lips pursed and his arms crossed over his chest and I had this funny thought that maybe he was a woman in the same way that Lola hadn’t been. Fuck me and my observation skills. 

 

“Did you like her?”

 

“There is no her to like, it’s a him”.

 

“She choose to introduce herself as a she, but I am not going to make a speech on gender politics here. The thing is: did you like what you saw? Did you like what you felt?” 

 

I frowned with a piece of sausage dramatically held halfway to my mouth. “It doesn’t matter, it was fake, I thought I was with a woman. Why are you asking me all this?”   
  
“Because you’ve been nothing else than a scaredy prat with a stick up your arse since you got here and the hour you spent with Lola you were glowing. Even when it was crystal clear that she was a bloke in drag beating the shit out of my bigoted section partners you were looking at her as if she held the world in her hands. And I think your righteous little brain is gonna make you make a huge mistake if you don’t try to find her and know her a little better. Also”, she uncrossed her arms, revealing her chest, “I was born a woman. If you tell anybody in the army I’ll kill you”. 

 

I stared at Phil’s boobs covered by her tank top for longer than it was polite, if politeness has anything to do with your roommate suddenly revealing the fact that he, she, whatever, has tits. I mouthed. I was trying to ask too many questions at the same time. I finally settled for looking at her in the eye, nodding and finishing my breakfast in silence.

 

When we were scrubbing the dishes I remembered I had been called ‘a scaredy prat with a stick up my arse’ and I complained. Phil laughed. “Oh, but you are, my friend. Although given how quickly you have accepted the fact that I have a vagina I’m starting to think otherwise”.

 

“That’s right. What’s your real name? I can’t keep calling you Phil”.

 

“See? Stick up your butt”, she said frowning. “You’re gonna get used to it because my birth name is Philippa and I hate it”.   

 

“Okay”, I replied in embarrassment. “And why did you faked your identity? Women can join the army”. 

 

“Because, Mr. Sticky McStickbottom, I don’t want to be a woman. I feel like a man. I want to be treated like a man. You better use ‘he’ when talking about me. I only told you about my biological gender and I only took off my breast binder today to prove a point and do you a favor”, she said, he said scrubbing mercilessly a pan.

 

“Pardon me, a favor? What favor?”

 

She, I mean he looked at me as if I was the dumbest creature on earth which I myself was starting to believe I was. He swung the tea towel he was using to dry the dishes over his shoulder and used both hands as a megaphone to shout in my face: “Do I have to spell it for you? El-O-El-A: Lola! Go. Find ‘er!”. 

 

“I told you there’s no point, I thought I was with a woman but it was a bloke and I am not… am not a… I’m not a homo, you know?” 

 

“No shit! And here I thought I had proven to you that not everything is what it looks like and that you’re a miserable little prick that only lightened up a bit when he had a huge guy dressed up in woman clothes between his arms”. 

 

For a moment there I was dumbfounded. I thought vaguely that I should feel insulted, but I just looked at her, at him, and mouthed. Again. 

 

“Look, Armie, let’s put it this way. You think you want to join the troops right? Well, I’ve been there, I’ve seen action, you wouldn’t last a minute. You better go straight for officer’s school, and it’s obvious to anyone that there you’d do great because you’re a thinker and we need thinkers up there. You only want it this other way, the hard way, to prove a point to your father”. 

 

Damn Phil, I had only mentioned my father once and she, HE had read through me like goddamned Sigmund Freud out of the tomb. “Likewise”, he continued, because apparently he wasn’t done mortifying me, “you say you don’t fancy guys but you were in front of Lola and you were melting, mate. And, sorry to break the news to you but Lola is a very strong, very tall, very manly man”. 

 

I stood silently looking up at Phil, waiting for more hurtful psychoanalysis.

 

“Come on, go find her and at least apologise for fucking off without a word!” 

 

“How am I supposed to find her?! Him!” I blurted.

 

“For fuck’s sake, she’s Lola, se reigns over Soho. Didn’t you see the posters when we went to the club? She has a show at the Starkiller”.

 

“What’s that?” 

 

“A Drag Queen’s club. We can go today if you want. I know people there. And after her show I can squeeze you backstage so you can apologise, okay?”.

 

The hungover, the full stomach and all the sudden news didn’t make it sound like such a bad idea. And a part of me that still thought about Lola as a woman was excited to see her again. But I had to remind myself that there was no her. Only him. Oh, and then there was that:   
  
“Wait a minute, so you knew the whole time I was dancing with a bloke?!”

 

“Not until one of the guys I know at the Starkiller came to me and asked ‘Who’s the redhead Lola’s snatched?’. Then I realised she was  _ that _ Lola. But then you were too into it and I didn’t wanted to interrupt. I honestly thought you were into her, I mean, how was I supposed to know you were straight?”.

 

I pointed an angry finger at Phil and threw my tea towel on the counter. “Mate! No! Not… No, just…No!”.

 

And left in anger and bewilderment with my mind full of images of Lola before and after the revelation, and my chest heavy with confusion. After a while I went back to the kitchen to have the last word on the matter:   
  
“Okay, you know what, I shouldn’t have left so abruptly and maybe I owe her, HIM, I owe him an apology, but we are by no means going to watch the show. We are going there before they start, I’ll apologise for the misunderstanding and leave because tomorrow I’ll enlist and I need to be fresh in the morning”.

 

Phil looked at me as if she, as if he wanted to start all over again the speech to convince me to go straight to officer’s school and to try and meet and “know better” whoever Lola was in real life or whatever, but she, but he just sighed and said “Okay”.

 

“Okay”, said I because I was there to get the last word.

 

“Okay”, he repeated because she, because HE goddamnit, was a pain in the ass. 

* * *

 

It was a half past four in the afternoon and we were knocking on a ratty metal door covered in old posters, in a back alley full of trash containers and unfriendly vermin. After some insistence on Phil’s end, a head popped mid height from a crack on the door.

 

“The hell you want? Oh, Phil”, the guy squinted at him and then, for a bit longer, at me. Probably because I was making a fool of myself looking at him transfixed or something, being him the first black man I ever saw so closely. Phil was right, I was a scaredy prat. 

 

Phil leaned in, all confidence: “Well hello, traitor. How are you doing?”

 

The guy opened a bit more the door, still blocking the entrance with his body, and stood in all his height, which wasn’t really helpful because Phil was huge. He was wearing really short jeans and a pink t-shirt. The whole thing didn’t add at all at the dignifying effect his expression told he was aiming for. He was ripped, though. 

 

“My name is Finn, not traitor. You know that. And I did not commit treason. I just quit the army because you can do that nowadays. You also know that. Get. Off. My Back. Already. Sarge”. He underlined those last words pointing with his finger at Phil’s chest and I could feel my cheeks aflame remembering what was underneath the binder. 

 

There was a tense silence and I thought we were about to get kicked out and I would be spared the apology to Lola forever, but then they both burst out laughing and hugged patting profusely each other’s backs. I mouthed mostly because I was getting used to it that day.

 

“Come on in, come on”, said Finn. “You haven’t been around for a while, we gotta celebrate, mate. Who’s your friend?”

 

“This is Armie Hux. I’ll tell you all about it over a beer”.

 

Finn led us through a long corridor and took a turn to the left which led to the club. Ahead must have been the camerinos and backstage by the looks of it. He made us sit at the bar and went behind it, promptly serving our drinks. Pint in hand he asked: “Well, what’s your deal?”

 

Phil answered for me and I felt like a five-year-old but I wasn’t going to complain. Because I was indeed a scaredy prat and was getting used to the role.

 

“We are here to see Lola. Is she in?”

 

“Not yet, but she won’t be long. Is something the matter?”

 

“Have you talked to her since last night?”

 

“Nope”, said Finn going to take a sip. And then in realisation: “Oh, but Poe was out dancing with her at the Rebellion last night and he told me she knocked down three guys over a ginger sweetheart!”. And then it dawned on him and he gaped pointing at me. Good to know I wasn’t the only slow ass bastard in London.

 

“That would be me”. I cleared my throat because I couldn’t believe I just admitted I had been someone’s ‘ginger sweetheart’. “Look I just wanted to apologize to her, to him, TO LOLA, er… because I thought he was a woman and I am not gay and Phil’s friends were pricks. That’s it”. 

 

Finn looked at me with his mouth curved downside in an impressed fashion, nodding approvingly. Then he nodded to Phil and said: “Shame your friend’s not gay. I like him for Lola. She usually picks up just posh whiny brats with a stick up their asses”. 

 

Phil bursted out laughing so hard he spilled half his beer. What a good supportive friend had I recruited.   
  
We heard the back door open and close and steps on the corridor. Then the door to the club opened briefly and a deep voice announced: “Hold your arses! Ben’s here!” 

 

The door shut again and the steps went away down the corridor. Finn grinned and clarified: “That was Lola. If you want to go and  _ apologise _ now, follow the corridor we’ve taken before and knock on the door marked with a red star and her name”. 

 

I nodded. I didn’t move at all. They were looking at me expectantly so I nodded again, downed the rest of my pint which was more than the half of it, put the glass down very loudly and said to myself and half Soho, because I can’t control my voice volume when I’m nervous: “Okay. Here I go”.

 

They cheered as if I was going to shoot a penalty.

 

When I got to the door I could hear Lola or Ben or whoever the hell he was, humming quietly at the other side. I considered turning my back because the whole situation felt stupid, but then I thought Phil had a point when he had said it was the right thing to do. Talk things through. It couldn't hurt, right? Right. 

 

I took a deep breath, I mustered all my courage and knocked on the door. From the other side not quite Lola’s voice answered: “For fuck’s sake, Finn, I just got in, I didn’t even had the time to sit my poor battered ass you know? Oh! Redhead”, he said a lot more softly once he opened the door, leaning against the doorframe with a slightly surprised expression. He was undoubtedly a he now, with a navy blue cotton shirt, jeans and trainers. His long hair was his, not a wig as I somehow had assumed. And, unfortunately for me, his eyes were as space-dark hypnotic as last night. I immediately felt weak on my knees under his gaze and thought I should have left the pint untouched before coming here. Then I remembered I was supposed to follow my father steps in the army and I tried to summon some dignity from that idea. I straightened up. He seemed to notice those changes because he smirked. When his lip tensed in the smirk I noticed the cut on it from last night and that gave me some more resolution. 

 

“May I come in? To talk”.    
  
“Sure…”, he said turning his back and moving out of the way. 

 

The camerino was a monument to glitter and feathers and black and red. He grabbed a bunch of dresses from a chair and put them on a coffee table. 

 

“Sit”, he offered, while he stood against his vanity. By his plain outfit he looked out of place but his attitude oozed confidence. This was his temple and I was an intruder. And I knew I was in trouble even without his multiple non verbal hints of being the one in charge there. 

 

I tried to avoid his eyes at all costs and started my mentally rehearsed apology:

 

“Last night I was under the impression that you were a woman. We grew intimate and had a very fine time but after realising you are a man I cannot possibly return any sort of feelings because I am not… er…”, damn it I had to stammer right then. 

 

“Homosexual?”, he helped.

 

“I am not a homosexual. Nevertheless, I should have explained myself on the spot instead of running away without any word. Also, I should have helped you against the guys that attacked you”. 

 

“Oh, sweetheart, I had that front pretty well covered”, he said rolling up his sleeves, exposing his muscular forearms. 

 

I felt myself blush, because it was more obvious than ever that he was fitter than me.

 

“It doesn’t matter. I should have stepped up and I should have talked things through on the spot. And I am sorry. Forgive me, please”. I stood up and extended my hand expecting him to take it and shake it. Instead, after looking at me for a while with a mix of incredulity and amusement, he took it with both hands and kissed my knuckles. As he came closer to me, he placed my hand in his left cheek. I looked up and found his eyes. I looked into her eyes. I was so damn confused. My lips quivered and my thumb brushed briefly along her face without my permission.

 

“My sweet Armie”, she whispered inches away from my face, while she stroke my hair the same way she had done the night before , “I’ve had dozens of similar misunderstandings and no one ever has come to apologize, let alone say that they should had defended me from any attackers”. She chuckled and let her eyelids slowly fall, only to immediately pin her eyes on mine again. “You are something to see”.   
  


I was mouthing once more. It was becoming second nature. She broke away and was a he again, swinging leisurely his arms at his sides. 

 

“Apologies accepted, of course”, he said with his crooked smile . “What is harder to accept is the fact that you don’t like me. See, your bodily reactions don’t match your words”. 

 

I looked down following his gaze like an idiot to see if I had a hard-on although I knew I hadn’t one. He laughed. I clenched my fists and went for the door. 

 

“Wait, Armie, wait, I’m sorry, you were so serious and formal, I was just messing with you. I accept your apologies and I apologise myself. I thought it was obvious I was a man in drag and I thought you were into it. Until your soldier friends stepped in it never occurred to me that you would actually mistake me”, he explained.

 

“Then why do you do it?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Why do you dress in woman’s clothes if you don’t want to be mistaken for a woman?”

 

He laughed wholeheartedly.   
  
“For the show, obviously, and because it’s fun. And because I can be both. Look, the tall blond guy you were with last night? He is friends with Finn, the bartender. I’m assuming he came with you and got you in because those two used to be inseparable. And I’m assuming you know about his condition because you two seemed close. Well, I’m not like him. He was born with the wrong package and he just wants to be, needs to be the other thing to be whole. I’m not like that, I’m okay with Ben and his package. Being queer and all. It’s just that sometimes being Lola is a lot more fun. Like dancing with you last night”, he added softly, tugging casually at my sleeve. 

 

After a moment of silence in which I tried really hard not to look again into Lolas eyes and remind myself that I was talking to a gay bloke named Ben, I wisely said:    
  
“I see. Well, I’ll be going”. 

 

“Aren’t you staying for the show?”

 

“Uh… I don’t think so… I have to be at the recruitment office early in the morning tomorrow”.

 

“Shame”, he said, and he bit his bottom lip doing things to my nervous system I could barely understand. 

 

“Well, er, see you around. Ben”. 

 

“You’re only allowed to call me that when I’m wearing trousers, you know?”

 

I tried really hard not to summon an image of Ben nor Lola not wearing anything. I failed miserably so I picked up my pace to the bar. Phil and Finn were telling war stories and pretty damn drunk. I begged to leave a thousand times and finally gave in and asked for a pint of ale, please. 

 

It was bloody time for the show and we were still there at the bloody Starkiller Drag Queen Venue and Live Music Club. Bloody Phil had played me and we were sitting at a bloody table at the bloody front row and now he didn’t looked half the drunk he had claimed he was a bloody minute ago. Just my bloody luck.

 

I wasn’t going to go back home alone, and Phil knew it. Because I still wasn’t familiar with London, I had brought no money for a cab and because I was scared of finding my way around Soho in the evening. So he had me forcibly held there and I was going to watch my first Drag Queen show. With Lola in it.

 

Soon enough I had to admit it wasn’t that terrible. There were musical and comical numbers introduced by a couple of masters of ceremonies. One was tall and slim and dressed in gold, and the other was short and fat and dressed in silver and bright blue. They were pulling a classic smart clown versus sassy clown number of their own and it wasn’t half bad. It almost made me forget that any time soon I was about to see Lola again and I wasn’t sure at all how that made me feel other than restless. Also, I was close enough to the stage for her, him, Ben, LOLA, to see me and I had just said that I wouldn’t be there, so I was going to look like a moron. And why did I cared so damn much what he thought about me?

 

A colorful magic number ended with a shirtless, glitter covered latino looking guy cut in two halves by a purposely clumsy magician drag queen. I learnt the magician’s assistant was Poe, Finn’s boyfriend and the one who asked Phil who was I the night before while I danced with Lola at the Rebellion. The masters of ceremonies took back the stage after halved Poe:

 

“Wow, Arty, what do you think about that?”, said Cee Tee, the tall one, while applauding fast and lightly.

 

“Well I’ll tell you what, Cee Tee: I bagsy that bottom part!”, drum roll and cymbal, lots of laughs. My small-town ass was mortified. 

 

“And now, ladies and gentlemen and those who haven’t decided yet”, announced Cee Tee, “the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Our one and only Lola performing a song by the ever so perfect Norma Jean, also known as Marilyn Mon…”

 

Poe, who seemed to have his body joined back, had interrupted her and was whispering hurriedly something in her ear. Arty joined the discussion and Cee Tee covered the microphone to reply back, not particularly pleased. They seemed to reach an agreement quickly and the odd pair were back to the audience again. With a wide smile, Cee Tee announced: “Change of plans, fellas!” 

 

“Our little Lola is in love” said Arty dragging the ‘o’. The public went nuts cheering.

 

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it seems that the fortunate gentleman is amongst us tonight!”

 

“Oh-oh! Who would it be? Where would he be? Uh-hu, uh-hu…”, they both used their hands as a makeshift eyeshade to peep out the tables as if they were sailors looking for land.

 

“Anyway!”, Cee Tee waved hastily a hand to stop their pantomime. “Lola is not sure if his beloved will return her feelings so she is set to seduce him with a song we all know and love but we haven’t enjoyed lately. Can you guess which one?”

 

The stage torches faded slowly and a single flash of light illuminated the silver stripes curtain. Jazzy music started to play and, in tune with the trumpet beat a leg in a black embroidered panty appeared, then a pair of white-gloved hands holding a microphone, then Lola. And she started to move forward as she sang, deep, low, slowly:

 

_ Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets _

_ And little man, little Lola wants you _

_ Make up your mind to have _

_ No regrets  _

_ Recline yourself, resign yourself _

_ You're through _

  
  


“Did she just pointed at me?”, I asked Phil barely daring to move.

 

“She pointed at you, indeed”, confirmed Phil with a friendly tap on my shoulder. 

 

I was through. 

 

Lola swept across the stage accompanied by a choir of three queens that sang the chorus. She moved as if she was liquid, sinuous, impossible, perfect. She was wearing a sleeveless night gown beaded with brilliants, with a cut all the way up to the hip on each side. Over her shoulders, a blazing white faux mink shor vest and around her neck a stunning silver and brilliants necklace matching her earrings. She didn’t look flashy and funny like the other queens that had appeared in the show. She looked positively beautiful, dignified, powerful, like a 1940’s jazz dame, her hair styled in that fashion, topped by a black birdcage bonnet that did absolutely nothing to stop her killer eyes to stab me every time our gazes met. 

 

She sat on the very edge of the stage and delicately put her high-heeled foot on top of our table. And on top of her knee, her elbow, and on top of her hand, she rested her face, a playful expression dancing on it while she sang:    
  


_ I always get what I aim for _

_ And your heart and soul is what I came for _

 

I shuddered and gaped and then she propped herself up again onto the stage and kept on singing. I couldn’t take my eyes off her even if my life was on the stake. When she sang ‘You’re no exception to the rule/I’m irresistible you fool’ she turned to me and winked and I lost whatever was left of me. I felt confused, humiliated, elevated, outraged, horny, utterly in love, and a bit more than tipsy because I had been drinking non stop for free since five in the afternoon and you know what they say about Irish blood and alcohol tolerance? Well either it’s a lie or I’m adopted. 

 

The crowd gave a roaring applause but I just sat there, looking at Lola looking at me, smiling, shimmering with all the brilliants and glitter of her outfit and with her own light. Ben had said it was for the show and for fun. I wasn’t going to let him have fun with me. This wasn’t fun for me. What I had just felt was real and I wasn’t ready to understand why a bloke in drag was making my chest heave and my crotch ache and my brain think he was too beautiful to be true. I didn’t realize that I was crying silently. Thankfully, Phil did. When Cee Tee and Arty were back on stage announcing the next number, and Lola had vanished behind the curtain, he took my arm and lead me out of the Starkiller by the same door we came in. Out in the alley I felt like I had to explain myself but nothing made sense and I felt like nothing was going to make sense anymore and I could only mumble: 

 

“I may… maybe I am… but I don’t… he’s not… I don’t want to see him never again”.

 

Phil just hugged me. It was unexpected but welcomed. He reeked of booze and sweat but it still was comforting. 

 

“You know there are lots of things you need to hear and say about what happened today, but for now I’m just gonna tell you this, and we’ll talk when you feel like it: it’s okay, mate. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re okay”. And he tightened the hug.

 

* * *

 

 

“What a pain in the ass”, declared Phil when I walked him through the details of the paperwork I had to fill in before even enlisting. “Just because you weren’t born on British grounds? I mean, both your parents are British, it’s not their fault they weren’t  _ on the homeland _ during labor”.

 

“Actually and ironically enough”, I started effectively confirming each and every claim on my pretentiousness ever made, “it is the army’s fault, because my father was in the US on duty. I didn’t even get to do any tests or anything. They won’t accept my application until I provide this whole list of paperwork. And I need to go to the US embassy to get my birth certificate. Who knows how long it will take! I’m starting to run out of money…”

 

“Okay, soldier, don’t get ahead of yourself. Go to the embassy, do whatever you need to and if it takes too long you can always take a part time job. Don’t freak out”. 

 

“Okay”, I breathed in relief. 

 

Phil looked at me meaningfully. 

 

“Oh, do you mean go to the embassy  _ now _ ?”

 

Phil used his drill sergeant voice on me but I could see the amusement all over his face: “Do you have anything else to do, you prick? Want me to go with you? Take you there by the hand, princess?”

 

My first impulse was to say yes, thank you, please, because it terrified me to cross half London alone in public transportation, but I was a grown ass man trying to get into the army. It was kind of ridiculous of me to need company that much, so I finally made my mind, refused politely and left Phil to his late breakfast. 

 

Once in the embassy, after a remarkably not incidented journey, I was given an eyebrow-rising high number compared to the turn displayed above the clerks counter. After a long while waiting without the number ever changing, I decided to take a tour around the areas of the monumental building open to visitors, admire the art and put my history degree to a use correcting in my mind the mistakes made by the curator in the description panels of the pieces.    
  


I was enjoying quite much an elaborate tapestry of a sword battle hanging at the landing of a staircase when I heard descending steps stop abruptly. I turned around out of curiosity and found Ben. It was as if all the blood of my body was drained and my heart insisted on beating desperately just in case it could find a drop in a distant corner. He looked as if he came out of the cover of a record: tight jeans, red and white striped tee-shirt, a lilac wrinkled silk scarf around his neck and a camel wide-winged hat tilted towards the back of his head. He took the last steps on his battered red trainers very slowly and approached me with an intrigued, smiley expression in his face, shoving his hands in his pockets. 

 

“What are you doing here?”, he asked too close for comfort and too low, and too damn deep and velvety and with too many eyes that were too bloody dark and dragging. 

 

But I seemed to muster some dignity out of nowhere and answered nonchalantly, with my hands holding my folder of paperwork in my back and my most dignified pose: “What are  _ you _ doing here? Upstairs is not for visitors” I said gesturing with my head to the red ribbon at the top of the white marble steps. 

 

“Well I’ve got my own tiny place in Soho, but technically I live here”, he revealed with that low, flat tone of his, crowned by a smirk. “My mom’s the ambassador”, he added to my puzzled face, letting the smirk shift into a soft, sort of shy smile. And then he gestured to the folder and my turn number: “What business do you have here? I thought you’d be at the recruitment office. Then again, I also thought you wouldn’t be at the show last night”, he added, all sass. 

 

Against all odds and the vertiginous drum-roll taking place in my chest, I kept keeping myself together in my pseudo militar pose and attitude:    
  
“I was there this morning. There’s a slight problem regarding my place of birth, which happens to be the United States, although it is only because my father was briefly detached there. I need to get some paperwork done”. 

 

“Wandering through the halls?”   
  
“It was taking forever to wait, I was bored…”, and I was starting to lose it.

 

“Do you want me to speed it up?”

 

“Oh, no, please, I don’t, no I wouldn’t, no I don’t, want to abuse, no way…”

 

He leaned in closer: “You are stammering, private…” his smile was the death of me. “Come on, it’s no abuse or anything. It's bullshit that they’re holding you back because of that. When I enrolled they practically threw a party at the office for every new recruit”, he said while going down the next flight of stairs, determined to cut me in the eternal line and get my paperwork sorted. 

 

“You were in the army?”   
  
“I was in Vietnam”, he looked back at me and smiled faintly. “There’s where I got the scar on my face. It goes all the way down to the armpit. Did you notice yesterday?”, he looked back again and winked devilishly. 

 

“Listen, thanks for the thought, I really appreciate it but I don’t want to get you in trouble for cheating or anything”, and I don’t want you to remind me of yesterday you confusingly sexy bastard.    
  


“Bollocks”, he said on an impressive display of linguistic immersion. “Although, you’re so flustered about it that if it makes you feel better just buy me lunch and we’re even. How about that?” 

 

That’s what I was fearing and I didn’t want to happen. 

 

“Okay”, I spluttered. What was wrong with me? The eyes, it was the eyes. Those eyes weren’t normal. And probably the fact that when he moved his shirt showed briefly his navel wasn’t helping either. 

 

“Okay”, he smiled. His crooked, charming smile. That also wasn’t normal.

 

He got me and my folder behind the desk and in no time they gave me a notice. My birth certificate would be there at some point within a month, which meant that I was going to spend the next month checking the mailbox twice a day. Until then, no army for me and I needed to find a way to earn money to pay my share of the rent to Phil. I was thinking all this on my way out of the embassy when I remembered I wasn’t alone, but Ben had been so kind as to not interrupt my thoughts. I looked up to apologise but he beat me to talk first:    
  


“Hey, I know a very nice place near my flat. It’s quite a long way on the sub but you can tell me what you were brooding over after I got you sorted out”.

 

“Oh! Oh, thank you very much about that. Sorry. My manners”. 

 

He laughed out loud and it made my knees go weak. I didn’t even argue on having to go all the way to Soho just to go back home after lunch. I was letting myself drift and it felt surprisingly good.    
  
We took the subway and Ben read my fear of the city and its people in my crossed arms and my teeth worrying the insides of my cheeks. He nudged at my side and started to make up stories about the travelers in our car. I looked at him wondering how was it even possible for a human being to act so carefreely and what was I doing with my life. He’d been in Vietnam. He’d been nastyly wounded there. And there he was, making up a tale about a woman in a fur coat carrying a caniche dog and her hypothetical former lover named Alphonse just to make me laugh and forget my anxiety. And I was expected to command an army one day.  

 

* * *

 

The café was really close to the Starkiller and the Rebellion Club but during daytime I wouldn’t have recognized the area in a million years. Ben picked a booth near the front window and handed me the menu claiming that he always ordered a 66.    
  
“What’s that?”, I asked running my eyes through the menu.     
  
“You wouldn’t like it. It turns you gay and evil”.

 

I rolled my eyes and he laughed. I was getting used to his laugh. I wanted him to laugh more but I was, as Phil had made clear in many different figures of speech, too stilted to make jokes. I just sat there hoping the amusement I seemed to inspire him naturally never faded and that I wasn’t caught staring at the way his lips curled around the straw in his glass of cherry cola. 

 

Order 66 happened to be potato mash and sausages. I had pork chops and beans. Nothing evil, everything quite tasty and the conversation really pleasant. I am still amazed that there wasn’t a single awkward silence. Ben managed to make me talk about my concerns on what to do during the gap month ahead and not wanting to ask for money for the rent to my parents. He remained silent for a moment, looking somewhere between my knee and the carpet, narrowing his eyes as if considering a metaphysical matter. Finally, he proclaimed he could arrange for me to help Finn at the Starkiller bar for a month if I needed the money. I almost laughed at the idea.

 

“Do you think I am the most adequate person to be around Drag Queens?”

 

“Why not? So far you haven’t called us perverts, nor spit on us or attacked us, you even apologised on behalf of others who did so and you’ve already spent like three hours with me and…”, he stopped to look at me intently, he took my hands and examined them carefully, back and palm, “…no, you haven’t developed a rush or anything”. 

 

I laughed openly at that and it caught me by surprise. 

 

“I think you’d be okay. And you’d loosen up a bit. You need that. You’re way too stiff, private”   
  
“I am not stiff!”, I protested in the poshest voice I’ve ever heard myself produce. He shot me a potato mash projectile with a spoon-catapult and muffled a laughter when it landed on my cheekbone. 

 

“Great aim. Sniper, were you?”, I deadpanned him while cleaning myself. 

 

“No, actually no, I was a driver. A corporal. So respect my rank, private”, he said loading another bit of potato mash. 

 

I half ducked under the table: “No, please stop!”   
  
“No, please stop, what?”   
  
I rolled my eyes but I couldn’t help a smile:    
  
“No, please sir, stop, sir”   
  
“That’s more like it” he said with his own gleaming smile, eating the mash and putting down his cutlery weapon.    
  
“Jesus, how old are you, playing with food? Five?”   
  
“Try four times that but, hey you’re never too old for a food fight when your goal is showing how stiff someone is”. I knocked his stupid hat off with a loaf of bread and he bursted out laughing loudly with surprise, letting himself drop boneless on the seat and applauding my audacity. Stiff my ass. 

 

We giggled for a while under the disapproving gaze of the other patrons –the waitress was amused, though–, and got back to our meals once we caught our breaths. After some minutes of comfortable silence, Ben spoke and for a moment it looked like he couldn’t find his carfree, upfront persona. He almost stammered, but only for a brief moment. He collected himself rapidly:    
  
“This is fun, Armitage. What are you doing this afternoon? I know for a fact that you have no plans and today’s my free day. Wanna hang around?”

 

I looked at him blankly. I could feel my heart pounding at my ears. So far it had gone well but I wasn’t sure about anything around him and he made me do and feel things I knew nothing about. There was a loud, vibrating ‘YES’ all over my body but in the middle of my chest a shaky ‘no, no, no, no, no’ was making me feel like sinking.

 

“Uhm… well, ah…”, I cleared my throat because I didn’t know what else to do.    
  
He looked at me, waiting, his ever present smile subtly fading into a sad one. 

 

“I should probably go home, tell Phil about the job offer so he knows I’ll be able to pay rent and call home and tell my parents everything’s been going on because I haven’t told them yet, and God my father will be pissed because if had signed in to the officer’s academy…”

 

“He will say I told you so”. Now Ben was trying to be sympathetic but he had disappointment written all over his face.

 

“You bet he will”, I huffed. And there was the awkward silence. And everything had been so nice that I couldn’t take an awkward silence. “Look, Ben it’s not that I don’t want to hang out with you or anyth…”.   

 

“Armie”, he raised both hands, palms towards me and my eyes lingered on his forearms and the wood and stone bead bracelets and leather straps around his wrists. His smile began to look a bit more like his usual smile. “I know you’re confused about what happened the other night at the Rebellion. I understand, you made it clear. And then last night it was pretty shitty of me to pull on you the Whatever Lola Wants number, but…”, he stopped, breathed and looked up as if searching for inspiration. He covered his face with both hands for a moment and chuckled, then he looked at me dead in the eye and continued with his low flat tone and his goddamn crooked smile: “When I saw you there in the audience I just couldn’t resist. I’m not going to lie, I like you. I liked you when I saw you at the Rebellion, I liked you more when we danced and talked, and you coming at the Starkiller to apologise and all only shows that you’re a pretty decent guy even more worthy of being liked. But I get it. You don’t like men. I am perfectly able to respect that. So, take everything that happened today and everything that happens from now on as something friendly or a joke and nothing else. Deal?”    
  
As he finished his speech he extended his hand. I took it carefully, like a loaded gun, and looked into his eyes while I shook it. His shake was firm, his smile widened and my inner voice screamed “I DON’T LIKE MEN BUT I THINK I LIKE YOU!”. I couldn’t bring myself to say that out loud, though. Even less after he had declared he had given up on me and was okay with it.   
  
We parted ways with a brief, manly hug and an appointment for wednesday to meet the Starkiller boss, an old rich man nicknamed Snoke from when he used to perform. As Ben walked away, hands in pockets, stride long and confident, hair flowing underneath the hat, it took for me a long while to realise I was just standing there looking at him go. I figured I needed to have the talk Phil had promised, and I wished that my confusing feelings would eventually dissolve themselves. I thought, to distract myself, that I was lucky that he had offered me the job at the Starkiller, muffling the inner voice that now was saying “and lucky to see Lola each and every working day”.

 

* * *

 

After I started working behind the bar of the Starkiller, Lola never sang Whatever Lola Wants again. All my body ached to watch that number one more time. I saw her impersonate Marilyn Monroe a couple of times, she often performed songs from classic movies and this days a Nancy Sinatra song seemed to be her hit, but nothing was like that first time. She looked good in colour and sass but she was meant for darkness, sophistication and class. She looked best when she sang jazz. 

 

The first week I discovered my tasks at the club were diverse. From mopping the floor to helping put gigantic wigs in place and zip up impossible dresses. I usually was behind the bar serving drinks, cleaning glasses and making trips to the storage room to restock, but if they were short of a man somewhere I was everybody’s favourite ginger, much to my torment. It’s not that they weren’t nice. It’s that I am shy and, well, it’s true, stilt, and they were all a bunch of colour and glitter bombs with legs, always happy to have me around. It was overwhelming. But also kind of nice to feel so rapidly accepted and liked. 

 

After work there was always a party on the making, either at the club behind closed doors or at the Rebellion or elsewhere. Sometimes it was everybody, sometimes it was just me and Finn and Ben or Finn and Poe or the four of us. Every now and then Phil tagged along. Once Ben tried to drag everyone to a new pub and he ended dragging only me by the collar of my shirt because nobody else was going and I was an easy target. The pub was horribly boring and I ended up drinking for free and getting my cab paid to compensate it. Not that I cared, I like boring. But come to think of it, I also liked my colorful job and my colorful, dare to say, friends.      

 

I never knew if Finn saw right through me or if Phil spilled the beans since we had our big talk about whether or not I liked men, and particularly Ben, shortly after I started working, but on my second Saturday, after a week and a half there, by the end of the night Finn nudged me with his elbow and told me:   
  
“Hey, why don’t you use your break to bring something to drink to Lola? She’s not supposed to be on stage anymore. Be back in twenty to clean and wrap it up. Unless you’re too tired, you know, I can manage, I always did it alone anyway”, I swear I saw him wrigle his eyebrows in the dim light of the club. What was that even supposed to mean? But I could use the break and Ben was fun to be around, so I did as I was told.

 

I grabbed two cokes and made my way to the backstage. I came across other queens that smiled at me shamelessly, winked and called me sweetheart. By then I was starting to get less flustered when that happened. A couple of them were exiting Lola’s camerino which she shared on busy nights, and the door was ajar. I knocked once and got in without thinking, closing the door behind me.

 

“Armie!”, Ben greeted cheerfully. 

 

I froze on the spot. He was bent over his vanity, close to the mirror, plucking off his false eyelashes. He had his hair down, still messy because of the net he’d worn under the blonde wig, and he was wearing the bright yellow panties and cowboy boots from his Nancy Sinatra number. And nothing else. I got caught in the sight of his bare chest and I realised there was nothing confusing or androgynous in it. It was a broad, muscular, man’s chest. It was Ben’s chest. And I was drawn to it. And to his arms, and shoulders, and shoulder blades and to his back and his arse and his ridiculously strong legs. I followed the line of his scar in the mirror up to his face and met his gaze. He had froze to, fingers hovering close to his right eye, looking at me half amused half expectant, lips slightly parted. Then I realised mine were parted too and I closed my mouth. I walked on clumsily, my back slightly hunched, offered him the bottle of coke and took a sip of mine half sitting in the vanity beside him.

 

“Hard day?”, he asked taking a sip and going back to his fake eyelashes.

 

“Don’t have much to compare to, but Finn says Saturdays always are and last Saturday was quite like this, so I guess”.

 

“Are you done for today?”

 

“I think so. I think Finn wants me to fuck off because he sent me here to bring you a drink and told me he can manage closing alone”. 

 

Ben laughed: “What a good boss you’ve got in Finn”.

 

“Yup” I said. And there was silence again. He had managed to break free from the fake lashes and had kicked the boots off unceremoniously. I was trying to look calm and collected while he took off the panties –thankfully he was wearing briefs underneath– when he grabbed a tee and a pair of jeans and asked if I wanted to go out. I tried to memorise each and every one of his muscles while not looking like I was lingering too much on it and, at the same time, answering the question without panicking. It wasn’t the first time we had gone out for a drink. But it was the first time he had asked me being practically naked:

  
“Uh, I kinda feel I’ve been out for ages. I’d rather have a drink somewhere nice and quiet”, I managed remembering the boring pub and figuring that Ben would let it go, not wanting to refuse his invitation but unable to accept because I was too flustered too even look at him in the eyes.

 

“My place?” was his casual, totally unexpected answer. Well played, Armie. You wouldn’t have seen that coming in ages but very well damn played.

 

“If it’s not in-in-intruding, you know”, I was hoping that half the club’s staff would join us, otherwise I wouldn’t have been so cool about it.

 

“Of course it’s not in-intruding. Got cold beer in the freeze. I know you barbarian brits like it warm but…” he shivered and pulled a disgusted face. That somehow warmed me up and chased the fluster away.   
  
“I think I’ll manage. You know we barbarian brits are also excruciatingly polite and would never point out that our host’s beers are not at the right temperature”. 

 

He laughed at that and I took a sip of my coke feeling smug. See, Phil? Not so stilt. 

 

He never dressed like Lola when we went for drinks after work. I never asked if it was on purpose, because I was there and he didn’t wanted to upset me, or because he didn’t do it that often anyway. So that night we were two regular blokes going out the back door of a club in Soho for a nightcap. And I was so caught up in our small talk that I didn’t fully realise we were actually going to be alone at Ben’s place. We’d been drinking alone a couple of times but never at Ben’s place and never after seeing him practically naked. I was trying really hard not to panic. 

 

“It doesn’t have the grandeur of the embassy”, he said spinning around his minuscule apartment with his arms opened and stopping to look at me mockingly, “and it certainly doesn’t have the tapestries that match your exquisite taste”, I rolled my eyes at that and he passed me a beer while wearing his magnetic crooked smile, “but it is conveniently close to the Starkiller and conveniently away from my nosy family”.

 

“That’s right”, I remembered, “how come you ended up in Vietnam? Didn’t you tell me your parents are pacifists?”

 

“Redhead, we’ve just started the night, what are you going to ask when we are wasted?”

 

I blushed and started mouthing. He chuckled.    
  


“Hey, it’s okay, remember? Everything that happens from now on is something friendly…”   
  
“Yes”, I interrupted, “is something friendly or a joke and nothing else. Hard day at work. Sorry”. 

 

He smiled pleased as he sat on his bed, toed off his shoes and crossed his legs like an indian. I took one of his kitchen chairs and sat opposite him. There wasn’t much more space nor any other seat to choose that wasn’t going to make me feel uncomfortable.   
  
“I enlisted to spite them. My mum is in politics, my uncle –his brother– is a well known and respected priest, and my dad, well… My dad’s always been everybody’s favorite rascal, which meant the bad boy slot in the family was taken and I had to be perfect. I had to be just like uncle Luke if possible”.

 

He took a long gulp off his beer and stared at it for a while. 

 

“Can you guess the problem?”, he said looking up at me as if he was a storyteller and I was an audience of three-year-olds.

 

“You were gay”.

 

“Damn right!”, he almost yelled. “And a huge moron too. Because if I had talked to my parents and my uncle instead of brooding about it and shagging my mom’s assistant’s gorgeous cuban son out of spite, maybe now you wouldn’t be looking at this horrendous disfigured face and I wouldn’t have nightmares most of the nights”. 

 

I wanted to say a lot of things about what he had just said. First of all, I was pretty sure he had just implied that he and Poe had been lovers and I didn’t know what to do with that information because all seemed to flow nicely between them now and I knew it had been Ben who had matched him to Finn so it was a bit of a shock to find out it all started with ‘shagging out of spite’. Then, I wanted to say that I could understand his confusion. Damn, I was a grown man going through it, he had just been a boy. And I also wanted to say that his face was perfect and I wanted to kiss the sorrow away of it. I wanted to say that I would sleep with him and hug him and tell him everything was alright when the nightmares came. But did I say anything? No. I just mouthed like a fish. 

 

“I got a fever because of the wound”, he carried on a bit shaken but composed. “They thought I wouldn’t make it and told me if I wanted to call home, because they knew my folks were big fish. During the phone call I started raving and spilled it all. My mom and uncle used every connection they had to take me back home and out of the army. When I recovered they told me I could live the life I wanted as long as I took care of myself. They meant condoms”, he added to make me blush and break the ill mood. 

 

“So you never wanted to be in the army in the first place?”   
  
“Not really. I thought they would hate me if they knew I was gay. I knew they hated war. I wanted them to hate me for a damn good reason. I was a very difficult teenager”, he laughed. “But I am told I was a good soldier. I even got a medal. I keep it… –he looked around the room, over the nightstands and the small vanity– somewhere”.   
  
“Was it related to the scar?”   
  
“Yup. I saved an officer. I lost three men though. Brave Corporal Solo got a medal for one life against three”. 

 

I felt my stomach sink. He spoke carelessly about it all but the scar was there to tell the tale. He hadn’t believed in it. He had thrown himself to it because he was afraid of the alternative. He looked calm but everything he had told was terrible. I wanted desperately to hug him. He found my gaze and asked:    
  
“What about you? Why are you so keen to enlist?”

 

I had always had an answer for that but I couldn’t find it now. My hand trembled and my beer, wet by condensation, slipped and crashed onto the floor. We both stood up instantly to clean the mess but Ben was barefoot and cut his soles.

 

“Jesus! What a genius I am stomping on broken glass!”, he complained biting his bottom lip and shutting his eyes in pain.

 

“Sorry! Sorry, it’s my fault, it slipped from my hand, I’m so sorry!”

 

“Stop apologizing. It’s not like neither of us could have stopped it mid air with the power of our minds”, he said with a smile, retreating back to the bed. 

 

“Hum… if you have a first aid kit I can…”

 

“Shoebox on top of the fridge. The broom and the mop are in the bathroom”.

 

I swept and mopped the wooden floor quickly and I brought the first aid kit to the bed. Ben was sitting with his back against the wall where there should have been a headboard, with his eyes half closed and his legs extended. When I passed him the cardboard box he tapped the bed and muttered:   
  


“Could you?”

 

It was my fault, so I obliged. I sat with his legs across my lap and proceeded to remove the bits of glass still stuck into his skin, and then to clean the cuts with alcohol. He didn’t even wince. 

 

“It’s because of my father. And his father. And uncles. And so on”, I started. 

 

I looked at him. He looked back through half closed eyes and hummed with interest.

 

“I’ve never known anything else. I’ve never asked myself if there was anything else. Phil says I should run for officer’s school but I wanted to prove myself first and go through the lower ranks up to an officer’s position…”   
  
“Don’t”, he interrupted and suddenly he wasn’t relaxed anymore. He was leaning towards me, frowning with gravitas. “Why do it if you’ve never asked yourself if there was anything else? That’s not what you want, it’s what someone else wants for you”. He paused. I didn't react. “If you do it they are gonna turn you into something terrible concerned with victory and victory alone, clad in a fancy suit barking orders left and right and you’ll be good at it, no doubt. But you’d forget this”, he gestured to my hands on his feet, “you’d forget how painfully sweet and posh and shy and  _ funny _ you are and then we’d have lost you forever”. 

 

A tear escaped down my eye as he talked. We remained silent, looking deeply at each other. His eyes didn’t hurt me or scared me or hypnotized me anymore. They were warm and pleading and welcoming but mine couldn’t stop shedding silent tears and he looked like he was about to cry anytime soon. And then he laughed a little, like he hadn’t meant to say any of that.    
  
“Come on, Armie. No need to cry. You know what I told you: friendship or jokes, nothing else”.    
  
“Nothing else?”, I repeated almost on top of his words, breathing deeply and rubbing the tears off my face.   
  
He hummed and nodded, brushing his thumb across my teary cheek. I caught his wrist and placed a long, soft kiss on his palm only realising what I was doing when I saw his eyes widen in surprise.

 

“I… I like the friendship and the jokes with you. But I’m starting to miss  _ something more _ ”. 

 

I was shaking from head to toe but I wasn’t stopping now. I got on all fours and went over him, I straddled on his lap and let myself rejoice on his expression. He looked amazed and amazing, his crooked smile only half drawn, his eyes moving all over my face looking for any sign, any hint of something, anything that helped him understand this sudden, pleasant change of dynamics. He was gorgeous. 

 

I raised my left hand and caressed his scar. He closed his eyes and gulped. I could feel a strange warmth coiling in my stomach at the sight of it. With my right hand I cupped his face and leaned in, heart beating overboard. He opened his eyes and all hesitation left me. I kissed him and he was waiting for me. As soon as our lips touched our eyes were closed again and we were only the caress of our mouths and tongues, my hands on his face, his hands on the back of my head. We pushed and pulled and bit and moaned into each other as if we were born to do just that, relishing on every little advance and victory over the other as much as on every defeat. Breathing was for the weak.

 

We had been kissing for forever, lips, face, neck, collar bones, and I couldn’t keep ignoring the pressure in our groins. He must had read my thoughts because he drove his hands very slowly to my fly while he kept niping relentlessly at the side of my neck. If I tried to open my eyes I only saw stars. If I tried to talk I could only moan. At some point, I’m not sure when, I had started rocking slowly my hips against his. When he managed to undo my zipper and I felt his hand over my briefs the surge of panic I had been containing all the evening overflew and I broke apart from him to the other end of the bed, panting heavily.

 

“Hey”, he said, almost breathless, “it’s okay”.    
  
He stared at me intently, breathing heavily, and held out an arm to me inviting me to come back to his side. When I didn’t move he talked again, softly:   
  
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to. Come. Please”. 

 

There was such sweetness in his voice that I couldn’t feel afraid even if I tried.    
  
“No one’s ever touched me before. I had… never kissed before”.    
  
His eyes widened briefly, almost unnoticeably.

 

“Do you want me to touch you?”, he asked. And it wasn’t sassy, nor provoking. It was a genuine question. As if he was asking for permission. I looked at his dark brown eyes, I traced his scar down to his t-shirt collar, I stared for a while at his lips, swollen from kissing, and the hand he was still holding out to me. I thought about what he said about me being an officer, as if being a militar would erase me rather than complete me, like everybody else had made me believe. My fists were clenching at the duvet and my heart was pounding in my ears. And I nodded.

 

He smiled and came to me. For a while he just hugged me, caressing my hair. He made me lay down across the bed by his side, our foreheads touching and our feet dangling. The arousal was gone but I wouldn’t have changed the moment for anything. After a while he smiled and I smiled back:   
  
“You feel better now?”   
  
“Yeah”, I whispered, my smile wider.

 

He seemed to brighten up and take it as a sign that jokes were allowed again:   
  
“Ok, little boy, gonna make you a man”.   
  
I rolled my eyes, refraining to point out that I was older than him. He climbed on top of me arching an eyebrow and pulling a sideways smile, trying to be exaggeratedly seductive to make me laugh. Then he suddenly got serious:   
  
“I hope you don’t ask me to choke you, private. I’ve been with two soldiers and they both were into choking. Is that a thing you guys like?”, he said thoughtfully. I pushed him aside, moved on top of him and pinned him down with a kiss that made him moan. “I have no fucking idea corporal, why don’t we just find out?”.  

* * *

 

I was lying on Ben’s bed and he was teasing me, leaning over me, one elbow at each side of my head, his stomach against mine, lowering down slowly to kiss me and pulling away slightly in the last moment. By the sixth or seventh time I grabbed him by the back of his neck and kissed him fiercely, barely containing a smug smile. 

 

“Okay, private, calm down”, he managed to say when I bit his bottom lip. “I guess I deserved that”.

 

“You did”, I said while I traced with my thumb the place where my teeth had sunk. His hair fell around our faces and darkened his features but we were so close I could count his lashes. His long, dense lashes like the feather fans he used in some of his numbers as Lola. I couldn't understand why would he even bother using fake ones. 

 

It had taken me five visits to Ben’s place along the week to be that comfortable all the time. During the previous four I had freaked out at one point or another and Ben had always reached out and calmed me down like the first time. 

 

“You really like me, don’t you?”, he asked softly, as if he hadn’t expected it but was glad anyway.

 

I tilted my head and tucked the curtain of his hair behind his ear. He rolled his eyes because he hated it and shaked his head to free his black strands again. I chuckled because I had known he was going to do that. 

 

“Yeah. I really like you”, I answered, my eyes fixed on his. 

 

He smiled almost shyly, fidgeting with my hair, and he lowered his gaze to my lips.

 

“I thought… uh”, he looked back at my eyes and tried to sound carfree, “I thought it was Lola you liked”. 

 

I hadn’t expected Ben to be insecure or hesitant. It didn’t suited his happy-go-lucky persona. But if he was going to be kind of insecure, I wouldn’t have expected him to be so because of Lola. I took him by the shoulders and made us sit up. So I was managing to not freak out today but it was Ben’s turn to let his demons go. I took a moment to gather my words and then spoke, trying to sound as convincing and committed as I felt:    
  
“Lola doesn’t exist without you. She is a fantasy. You said it, she is just for the show and for fun. She is not real. I got confused at first when I met you and thought Lola was a real woman and all that but by last Saturday when we first, you know… then I already had pretty clear in my mind that I wanted you. I don’t care if dressed in drag, in jeans or in camo gear. I like you. A lot. And when I see Lola I like her only because it’s you underneath”.

 

“You sound like you’ve given it a lot of thought” he smiled, half relieved half impressed.    
  
“Well, Phil drilled me quite intensely about all things queer. He’s a drill sergeant after all. And then he wouldn’t let it go until I admitted that I might be at least bisexual”. 

 

Ben laughed, covered his face and rubbed it. Then he looked at me fondly.    
  
“You’re not confused anymore, then?”, I shook my head. “Good. Because these past few days that we’ve been alone, you know, after the first time, every time you panicked I was starting to think that your little freak-outs were because… well because you wanted Lola, not me. Because except for today we always meet after work and it made sense that you were horny for her and then with me you didn’t felt like it”.   
  
“You’re worried because we haven’t had sex since the first time?”

 

“I was worried because I thought the reason we hadn’t had sex was that I’m not a woman”.

 

I took a deep breath.   
  
“The reason we haven’t had sex since the first time is that I like you so much and I want you so much that I get a fucking panic attack every time we get near doing it. I want it just as much as you, trust me. I’m just… shy? I don’t know, I need to take it slowly. I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I’m in love with a bloke”.

 

Ben shot his eyes open. There was a long weird silence. And then, slow ass me realised what I had just said:   
  
“Oh my God”, I said covering my face, red as a fire engine.

 

“Did you just…?”    
  
“Forget it”, I muttered from behind my hands.

 

“I can’t unhear what I heard”, he teased.    
  
“Please, try”, I whined. 

 

“Uhm, but it’s been less than two weeks and we’ve only known each other for a month…”   
  
“I’ve also done the math, thank you”, I said looking back at him sternly to find his damn crooked smile.

 

“Hey”, he said softly, “don’t over react. I was just messing with you. I’m actually flattered”. 

 

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Looked at my watch and thanked the heavens. 

 

“Good for you” I said hurriedly. “Look it’s already a quarter to four, I’m gonna go ahead and go to work. See you there”. 

 

I got up and went to the door.

 

“Armie, are you angry at me?”

 

“No, I’m just about to die from embarrassment and heartbreak, so please let me be away from you for a while”. 

 

And I slammed the door. In the whole month working at the Starkiller I had never been so glad that it was a Saturday, because I wouldn’t have time to think in what had just happened. 

 

Later that evening I knew Lola was supposed to perform Rita Hayworth’s Put the Blame on Mame, from Hilda, but she only did some goofy numbers with other drag queens and not a single solo. When Finn and I were cleaning and some of the performers were making plans for the night Ben was in Lola’s street clothes and joined the chattering. He looked at me expectantly but when Cee Tee asked me if I was coming I said I was wasted and I was going back home. I avoided Lola’s gaze. 

 

Phil was up when I got there.    
  
“I hope your birth certificate comes in soon. It’s been a month more or less”.

 

“Yeah”, I answered. “You’ve been waiting up just to tell me that?”, I half laughed.   
  
“Nah. Thing is”, Phil started, shifting in his seat, “I’m getting deployed by the end of next week. And I was thinking it would be a nice coincidence to have you amongst my new recruits. 

 

I gaped. We were not at war. 

 

“Where are you going?”   
  
“Vietnam”.

 

“Shut up. We are not in that war”. 

 

“Apparently, americans are so useless that they need us for instruction and tactics purposes. So much for the independence war”, he laughed. 

 

We stayed in silence for a while, looking at nowhere in particular.    
  
“It’d be an honor to serve at your command”, I said because I felt it.

 

“It’d be an honor to instruct you”, he answered. Then he stood, we saluted, and he went to his room. 

 

I headed to mine and I rubbed my face. I felt like shit and absolutely lost. From under my mattress I produced my birth certificate that I had had for a week and looked at it. The army and the future everybody wanted for me and I never bothered to consider; the army and a good friend going away to a deathly place; or Ben, for whom I had postponed enlisting, questioned everything and who had laughed and not said ‘I love you too’ when a love confession had slipped my tongue.   

 

* * *

 

I had brewed coffee instead of tea. It seemed akin to the gravity of what I was about to confess. Black and bitter and unusual. I didn’t even know if Phil liked coffee. I assumed he did, as the kitchen had everything needed to prepare it. 

 

I faced the door, sitting at the kitchen table, the offending official document its centerpiece. The coffee was still hot, distributed in two mugs, when Phil appeared and found me rubbing mercilessly my face after an almost sleepless night.

 

“Morning”, he said with concern, the question ‘is something the matter?’ unvoiced but very much heard. 

 

I gestured to the chair opposite me and he sat down, immediately acknowledging my birth certificate. 

 

“When did you get it?”, he asked, being obvious that it hadn’t arrived a Sunday before eight in the morning. He took a sip of his coffee waiting patiently for my answer. There wasn’t any sugar in it. He didn’t complain. 

 

“Tuesday morning”. 

 

“Why haven’t you enlisted yet?”, it was a flat question between sips of coffee, no anger, no reproach.

 

“I’ve been…” I had been what, exactly? What had it been? Was it still anything? Was it even a good reason to postpone something like this? I shook my head and straightened my shoulders. “I’ve had something with Ben since last Saturday”. 

 

His eyes widened slightly at the news but the rest of his face remained unperturbed. He lowered his mug and asked: “Why are you pulling it out now?”

 

That shook me. That meant he understood or he thought he understood why I had pulled it off. That meant he cared and didn’t judged.

 

“Because”, I answered shakily.    
  
He looked back at me blankly.    
  


“You are leaving for Vietnam”, I bursted as if it was self explanatory. He still didn’t react. “All my life as far as I can remember everyone I’ve known has expected me to join the army. This is what I have to do! I shouldn’t have postponed it! It was childish and disrespectful for all my relatives in the army and for you. I have to do this. I must do this! This is what they raised me for!”. 

 

There was a moment of silence while Phil looked through the kitchen window, squinting at the early sun. Idly, it worried me that he would probably get sunburnt in Vietnam, being so pale and blond. When he spoke he sounded unaffected:

 

“I have already told you that I don’t think your place is in the lower ranks. After this”, he gestured towards my birth certificate, “I don’t even think your place is in the army. I think your place for now is behind the Starkiller’s bar and between Ben’s legs. For now, because you’re young and clever and you’ve got time to figure it out. You. Not somebody else”.

 

He paused and looked again at the document. He took it, read it, left it again at the center of the table and looked back at the neighborhood through the window. He looked troubled.    
  
“But I’m just a good for nothing freak who got in the army for lack of a better life prospect so what do I know. I’m not going to fight you if you decide to enlist. On the contrary, I’ll try and make your dad intercede so I can have you in my section. Sounds good?”    
  
A wide smile spread across my face.

 

“Sounds great, sarge”. 

 

He smiled faintly, took his mug and left the kitchen. It was decided then. I only had to work tonight, tell Finn, collect my salary and get up really early on Monday morning to be at the recruitment office. I was going to need a long nap before work time.    
  
I made myself some porridge and headed to my bedroom for the much needed rest I hadn’t had that night. I tossed and turned for a while in anticipation for what was about to happen, thinking about what I would say and how would Finn react, trying not to think about Ben at all and sometimes even succeeding. I slept lightly, waking every now and then to the sounds of Phil rummaging around the house doing his chores, working out or watching telly. I got up just in time to leave for the club with a knot right beneath my sternum. 

 

I had to wait at the back door a couple of minutes for Finn and he got there with Poe. It got me nervous. I had expected to be alone with Finn. It wasn’t that I disliked Poe or anything, but he was probably Ben’s closest friend. And if he was here today that meant he was performing, so he would be backstage with Ben. So he could tell Ben anytime that I was leaving. I had no good reason to tell them not to tell Ben or to tell them to let me tell Ben first and I wasn’t even started telling people that I was leaving and I was already freaking out. How was I supposed to endure war zone?

 

“Hey, luv!”, Finn greeted me.

 

“Hey, honey”, answered back Poe. “I’ve walked with you all the way from your place, you really haven’t noticed me up until now?”   
  
Finn rolled his eyes at the terrible joke as he unlocked the back door and Poe winked at me before checking if the entrance of the alley was clear and smacking his boyfriend’s butt. 

 

“Ugh! Get inside, you cheeky bastard!”, bursted Finn trying to hide unsuccessfully his amusement while holding the door open for us. So that was what it was to be two blokes in a relationship. It looked like something I could get used to. That is if a certain someone wasn’t just interested in sex, glitter and feathers. It was great of me to remember just now that I was in love with an egotistical ballsack and consequently heartbroken. Really, great timing. 

 

I didn’t waited much to break the news. Poe was sitting on top of the bar, legs dangling. He reached back into the refrigerators and fished three bottles of beer. Finn hugged me. I was stiff, clutching at the mop.    
  
“I mean”, Finn said patting my back and breaking apart, “it’s already been a month and that was the deal. But I’m going to miss you”.    
  
“Actually”, said Poe wrapping his arm around Finn, “we were arguing just today if this thing with you and Ben would make you change your mind about enlisting”. 

 

“I’m sorry, what?”

 

Finn’s elbow shot right into the center of Poe’s stomach and Poe bent forward with a sound of pain muffled in another of repented realisation. They looked as if they had dropped the cake at a little girl’s birthday party. You couldn’t possibly fit more guilt into two faces. Poe clutched into Finn’s chest and Finn into Poe’s knee. Poe cleared his throat, they both started talking, they shut up and then Finn gave it another go.    
  


“Well it was a bit suspicious. You both looked different. Left together more often. I didn’t say anything but Poe thought the same and he asked Ben on his own accord and…”   
  
“I asked him, yeah, well, actually I asked him who was his querido, not that I knew it was you, but I suspected there had to be someone, because he was like happier and brighter. Ben is all jokes and fun but you know he is quite gloomy deep inside because of the war”, Finn slapped him “I mean, well. He said he wasn’t sure what it was but…”   
  
“He said you were seeing each other”, finished Finn. “And that he was very happy. Oh, what did he said when you told him you’re leaving already?”   
  
I dropped the mop in despair and rubbed my face with one had, the other resting over my hip.

“Armie, you have told him, haven’t you?”, inquired Finn.   
  


I exhaled, dropping my hand off my face.    
  
“Armie, you can’t…”

 

“Finn, something happened in between, okay? I don’t know where we are or if I want to be anywhere just let me take care of my own bus…”   
  
“Hey, everyone! Armie, can you come for a second?”, the door to the backstage corridor had burst open and Ben had teared my resolve down.    
  
“I am kind of busy” I yelled without turning back. 

 

“It’ll be a minute, come on man”.    
  
In front of me, the happy couple had resumed their guilty, concerned facial expressions and were now gesturing notoriously towards the door and mouthing repeatedly ‘go’.    
  


“Fuck me” muttered I, and turned around to meet Ben.

 

We stood at the other side of the door, under the cold light of the corridor fluorescents. I crossed my arms before my chest awkwardly. Ben tilted his head and pulled his softest voice tone that wasn’t yet Lola’s character:   
  
“Am I imagining things here or are you avoiding me on purpose?”

 

“I am, yes”.    
  
“Am I supposed to know why? Because I don’t”. 

 

“This is not a good moment nor a good place to talk about it”.    
  


“Oh, were you planning on talking about it at all?”, he said sweetly, sourness spreading across his face.

 

All the agitation of the last minutes built up into that moment and as I started talking I felt myself slip into overdrive:

 

“Geez… Look, Ben. You. Okay, listen, I. No. This is not the moment nor the place, okay? We’ll talk about it. I wasn’t planning on talking about it because there wasn’t a plan, things just happened and I got upset and I thought you knew I was upset, I think the reason why I got upset is obvious but apparently it isn’t which only shows how much of a self centered ass you are so I’m gonna have to explain it to you: I told you that I love you and you laughed it off!”, I stopped for air and took in his look of shock, but it only fueled me more. “Okay?! But nevermind because other things happened in the meantime and YES, we’re definitely talking about it if you think there’s still something to talk about. Just not now. I don’t know when but not here, not now. Not now”.

 

Ben narrowed his eyes and muttered “Fine” through clenched teeth before leaving stomping to his camerino. I turned around and gave a double knock on the door before opening it. When I came out Finn and Poe were mopping the floor ridiculously close to me.        
  
I wasn’t going to have a peaceful last day. Lola was in almost every number. Luckily there was only one solo and it was These Boots Are Made for Walking, which I already knew by heart and had always failed to impress me. Except, that was what I thought and Ben had other plans. And I only realised that when I noticed the upset ring in Cee Tee’s voice that only appeared whenever Ben came up with a last minute change on the program.

 

“Thank you Cee Tee, thank you Arty. Thank you everybody”, said Lola over the applause.    
  
At first I didn’t got it. He had his hair down and he was wearing barely no makeup, just enough to justify his presence atop the stage of a Drag Queen’s club. He wore a long sleeve white hippie dress, long to his ankles and he was barefoot. There was a stool from the bar in the middle of the stage and he climbed on it while he talked. And while he talked I realised and I cursed, ignoring customers, scrubbing absentmindedly the same glass, eyes pinned on him.

 

“I love you all, my dear audience, and I know you love me. That’s why I hope you’ll forgive this little extravaganzza of mine tonight. You see, I’ve had a bit of a heartache lately”. The audience obliged with an empathetic ‘aw’ as he pouted. “And, as you know I am American. But nobody’s perfect”. They laughed. They always laughed at Lola’s punchlines. “And we Americans have what they call a multicultural heritage. That means that when we don’t have enough art we steal it”, laughter again, he was good, the wanker. “Anyway, who sings better to heartache that the Irish folk? I’m going to steal an Irish song”. 

 

The lights dimmed and he started to sing. I’d never seen him perform a capella before. It only added to the calculated soul crushing effect of it all. 

 

_ Come over the hills, my bonny Irish lad _

_ Come over the hills to your darling _

_ You choose the road, love, and I'll make the vow _

_ And I'll be your true love forever. _

 

_ Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows _

_ Fair is the lily of the valley _

_ Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne _

_ But my love is fairer than any. _

 

_ 'Twas down by Killarney's green woods that we strayed _

_ When the moon and the stars they were shining _

_ The moon shone its rays on his locks of copper hair _

_ And he swore he’d be my love forever. _

 

_ Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows _

_ Fair is the lily of the valley _

_ Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne _

_ But my love is fairer than any. _

 

_ It's not for the parting that my sister pains _

_ It's not for the grief of my mother _

_ 'Tis all for the loss of my bonny Irish lad _

_ That my heart is breaking forever. _

 

_ Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows _

_ Fair is the lily of the valley _

_ Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne _

_ But my love is fairer than any. _

 

  
When they started to applaud and cheer I dropped the glass, eyes teary and a lump in my throat, and made my way through the crowded club to the backstage door, through the chaotic corridor up to Ben’s camerino, stormed in and locked the door.    
  
“Who told you I’m leaving?”   
  
Ben had been smiling but now he furrowed his brow:   
  
“What? Leaving where?”

 

“If you didn’t know I was leaving what was all that ‘loss of my bonny Irish lad’ about? All Ireland knows that song it's about a girl with golden locks not a copper haired lad! Why would you change the words and mourn that _I'm_ leaving?" 

 

“I was… it was… fuck, Armitage can you stop pacing around and just tell me what do you mean by leaving? And why the hell are your eyes like that? Have you cried? I didn’t meant to make you cry it was supposed to be nice, it was my con…”

 

“I’m going to Vietnam!” 

 

It was as if they had sucked the life out of him. I felt as if I had killed him. His eyes were wide open and his lips slightly parted. He breathed heavily and slowly. He had his gaze on me but I could tell he wasn't looking at me. He mouthed incredulously “Vietnam” without any sound and then he said, almost a whisper: 

 

“The UK is not at war with Vietnam”.

 

I was grateful that we were skipping the issue of the arrival of my birth certificate and my enlistment. 

 

“We are assigned to provide support at instruction camps, away from the fray”.

 

A surge of anger brought him back to life.    
  
“No. No way. I’m not having none of this. There’s not such thing as ‘away from the fray’. If you’re as dumb as to buy it go and let them turn you into a hull to be filled with patriotistic bullshit, hatred and reveries of victory and honor and other great meaningless words. You’ll need these. They’re a lucky charm. They kept me alive”, he said sardonically while he took something off the upper edge of the mirror and threw it to my chest.

 

I picked it up from the floor. They were his dog tags. The shock made me forget momentarily our confrontation.

 

“Why do you keep them here?”   
  
“To remind me why I choose lipstick over bullets”, he bit his lower lip, trembling lightly, “glitter over khakis, and a certain set of meaningless grand words over the other”. 

 

I was staring at the metal tags, my mind racing through all the meaning Ben had poured on them and on the act of tossing them to me when I switched back to reality. 

 

“Which one?” 

 

“Go away, Armitage. Go to your combat-free instruction duty”, he had turned his back to me and sounded tired. Beyond tired, absolutely exhausted. He was beginning to undress.    
  
“Which set of words over victory and honor and such?”, I insisted.    
  
He half turned to me with the dress already off his head but the sleeves still on, his hair a mess, his eyes sad and tired but a half smile, amazed that I had been listening to his rant.   
  
“Beauty, humour, pleasure… Love”.

 

He held my gaze for a moment and a single tear fell down his scarred cheek. Then he turned his back to me. I left the room wrapping my fingers tightly around the cold metal tags and not looking back. 

 

* * *

 

Twelve months of duty could have passed in the blink of an eye and be easily forgotten if it weren’t for that one unexpected attack. Life at the camp went on peacefully from training and drills to chores to bedtime with the occasional recreational event. I was grateful for the brainless routine during day. At night, I closed my fist around Ben’s tags, that I kept under my pillow, and used every ounce of my willforce to ignore his ominous words and suffocate the love I still felt for him despite myself. It wasn't that I thought he didn't deserved it or I didn't deserve it. It was that I had realised way too late and too far away to do something about it what he had meant to say singing Red is the Rose. At least I had Phil to whine about it when we got drunk. 

 

The attack took place in the middle of the night, on my seventh month of duty. They blew up the officer’s barracks, right next to ours. After that there was crossed fire and we were hit by several grenades. Chaotic and improvised. It felt as if they were throwing us sticks and stones. But some officers died from their wounds. As a result, Phil was unwillingly promoted to Captain. I became Sergeant. I didn’t became a mindless drone of the war machine as Ben feared, but I did changed. I became stern. And I learnt that I wasn’t a military man. I didn’t wanted to be.  

 

Our first night back in London, Phil and I went out with our section's Londoners. We _had_ to go to the Starkiller. We wanted to see our friends. I needed to see Ben, even if it was only on stage.

 

“What if they recognise Finn?”, I passed my concern to Phil. 

 

“Do you honestly think that if there's someone in this section that still doesn't know Finn’s gay, Finn would give a golden fuck about it when they find out?”

 

I had to admit he had a point. 

 

So a bunch of soldiers in their uniforms flooded a drag queen’s club in Soho a Friday night and it wasn't the beginning of a joke. It was packed so we took a couple of booths at the back, away from the stage and the bar, postponing the greetings to the end of the night when Finn and the others wouldn’t be so busy.    
  
“I can’t believe they can move around so gracefully on those heels! These from the gala uniform are killing me and they’re barely three inches!”, complained Rey, our mechanic and apparently Finn's confidant during his days in the army.    
  
I was telling her all about that time when they made me walk along the bar on golden platform heels as an initiation rite before starting to work there when Phil slapped my arm. Lola was on stage, wearing one of his jazz dame outfits.

 

“Hello, my loved ones. This one, you already know because I sing it and I tell it every damn week. It’s just that…    
  


_ I am mad about the boy  _

(and I’m mad at the boy too, have I told you he left me?)

_ And I know it's stupid to be mad about the boy _

_ I'm so ashamed of it but must admit the sleepless nights I've had _

_ About the boy _

 

He placed his free hand on his hip, curving his body seductively and said:    
  
“He’s playing soldiers in Vietnam, can you believe it? He choose the jungle heat over this hot body”, drum roll and cymbal.

 

As he kept singing I leaned into Phil:   
  
“Is he talking about me?”, I muttered incredulous.

 

“It sounds like he’s talking about you to me”, he whispered. 

 

As if he had noticed my doubts, Ben fitted another punchline between verses:   
  
“I really hope he is using a hat, my sweet ginger boy under the harsh tropical sun…” 

 

“Okay”, I said to Phil, “he’s talking about me. And this isn’t one of his improvised - let’s fuck with Armie’s feelings - numbers because he doesn’t even know I’m here”.

 

I gave it a moment of thought. I had the tags with me. I had always had them with me since he gave them to me. I figured I could just return them. And talk. And nothing else because my mind wasn’t racing into any other possible scenarios at all, because war had scarred me and I was a man, a very serious an hardened one, and I didn’t do those kinds of things that hopeful teenagers do. At all. I didn’t even waited for the song to end and stood up.   
  


“I’m gonna go, if I don’t come back you just enjoy the night with the boys and Rey and we’ll met at home”. 

 

Phil pulled a wide grin and smacked my ass. Rey was beyond puzzled when I made her stand up to exit the booth. She was a clever girl. She had heard and seen, and she knew what was going on. I assumed she didn't had prejudices against homosexuality given her friendship with Finn, but right then I couldn’t care less about if I was right or wrong because after a whole year Ben kept singing songs for me and that, I reckoned, that meant something. 

 

I run to backstage, pushing customers aside and when I got to the corridor and the performers started to protest at the sight of an intruder in uniform I just said:    
  
“Hey! It’s me, Armie! I’m back from Vietnam! I promise this buzzed hair will be ginger when it grows back!” 

 

They all cheered and chanted my name and I felt like a national hero. Poe came from the back, pushing everybody aside and hugged me, covering my blazer in glitter:   
  
“It’s good to have you back”, he said, smacking my ass, and he run to help someone with his wig. What was about my butt tonight? 

 

I finally got to Ben’s camerino, closed the door to muffle the noise of the corridor to get some peace of mind and sat facing it, placing the dog tags on top of the vanity, amongst plastic jewelry and make-up. 

 

I didn’t got time to have second thoughts or hyperventilate or sweat or anything. The door opened and Ben got in looking at the floor, huffing and tearing off his brilliants from his neck and ears as if he held a grudge against them. He shot the door with his foot and looked up. He froze on the spot when he saw me, causing a cascade of costume jewelery from his hands. I licked my lips and ran my hands up and down my thighs before standing up.

 

“Say something”, I begged smiling nervously. My mind was blank. He had always been the talker.

 

“It is a crime what they have done to you hair… sargeant”, he muttered acknowledging my shoulder patch. He didn’t move an inch, eyes wide, lips parted. The mention of my rank reminded me my lines.    
  
“I came to return these. They were lucky after all. It turns out we were attacked one night. I kept them under my pillow. When they attacked us I jumped out of bed and got ready like the others. When I was already at the door, I turned around to get your tags, to wear them too. Right in time to avoid a grenade that hit the steps. Just where I had been seconds ago. After that I wore them the whole night. Not a wound, not a single scratch. Not even a bruise. Lucky”, I ended pushing a smile, almost breathless and with a knot in my throat.   


He was trembling slightly, his lips pressed and his eyes teary. He paced towards me and I was sure he was going to slap me. He grabbed my tie, pulled me towards him and kissed me fiercely, angrily. He tasted like lipstick, sweat and tears. He passed his anger and despair to me and I bit back, I cupped his face in my hands and let our lips collide. I tasted blood when we parted, not even inches away. 

 

“I have missed you”, he said, but he looked at me as if he was testing me. As if this didn’t meant forgiveness.    
  
“They haven’t won me over. I still believe in the right set of grand words”, I paused. I didn’t said I still love you. “I’ve already resigned, effective next week”. 

 

He breathed loudly and covered his mouth as he fell to his knees.    
  


“Ben! What’s wrong?”    
  
He stood up again and I grabbed him by the shoulders.    
  
“Fuck, you just called me Ben and I realized I’m in Lola’s clothes and I don’t wanna say this in Lola’s clothes”, he was crying and laughing at the same time and I was completely lost. He started to undo his 1940s hair-do and to clumsily unzip his gown

 

“What the hell are you doing, Ben?”

 

“Nevermind”, he stopped fidgeting and took my hands. “The thing is, I should have told you, I thought you knew, and when I understood you didn’t I thought that I had made it clear with that last song but, nevermind, nevermind, fuck, Armie”, he took a deep breath “you’re back and I’m a year late and I hope you still love me because I love you”.   
  


I looked at our hands entwined and then into Ben’s eyes, filled with relief and hope.

 

“I know”.

 

For a moment I wished I had said it coldly, looking composed and seductive and serious and desirable. But I said it half laughing half crying, with Ben’s lipstick smudged all over my mouth and all my body trembling, surrounded by glittery outfits and feather fans, in front of a half undressed man in drag. It had a bit of each of Lola’s grand meaningless words. It was perfect.    
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware that sometimes things get messy when it comes to gender pronouns during the fic so here comes a sort of explanation: any gender inconsistencies that you may find are a result of Armie's inner monologue trying to digest the facts that his roommate and sarge Phil Asma is a trans male and that his love interest who he thought was a woman is actually a man who's into crossdressing and who has an on stage female persona. About the Ben/Lola duality, after the initial shock, Armie usually refers to Lola on stage as she, and to Ben off stage as he, but at a certain point I tried to represent Armie coming to terms with his feelings and his newfound sexuality using masculine pronouns to talk about Lola, because he sees Ben through his on stage character and he accepts the fact that he loves a man. I hope this makes sense to you.
> 
> Also, If you guys liked it and I find the time, I am considering adding a companion of short deleted scenes showing more deeply Armie's relathionship with his parents, Phil, Finn and Poe, Ben and Rey and the other soldiers. Stay tunned!


End file.
